Venezuela Seizes General Motors Car Plant

While the US has a habit of invading or attacking sovereign nations any time the president's approval rating dips below a certain threshold, Venezuela has a similar, if less dramatic mechanism to provide a brief boost to Maduro's popularity: it nationalizes foreign plants on its soil.

It did so last July, when the country was once again suffocating under a wave of violent protests, when just hours after Kimberly-Clark said it will shutter its Venezuela operations after years of grappling with soaring inflation and a shortage of hard currency and raw materials, Venezuela retaliated by announcing it would seize the factory.

It did so again overnight, when General Motors said on Wednesday that Venezuelan authorities had illegally seized its plant in the industrial hub of Valencia; as a result the carmaker said it would immediately halt operations in Venezuela.

"Yesterday, GMV's (General Motors Venezolana) plant was unexpectedly taken by the public authorities, preventing normal operations. In addition, other assets of the company, such as vehicles, have been illegally taken from its facilities," the company said in a statement.

The automaker said the seizure showed a "total disregard" of its legal rights. "[GM] strongly rejects the arbitrary measures taken by the authorities and will vigorously take all legal actions, within and outside of Venezuela, to defend its rights."

GM's subsidiary in the country - General Motors Venezolana - has operated in Venezuela for nearly 70 years. It employs nearly 2,700 workers and has 79 dealers in the country. GM said it would make "separation payments" to its workers.

While the US carmaker vowed to defend its rights, it has no chance of success of recouping its property under the current regime, which no longer recognize either local or international law. The seizure comes amid a deepening economic crisis in leftist-led Venezuela that has already roiled many U.S. companies.

GM said the seizure would cause irreparable damage to the company, its 2,678 workers, its 79 dealers and to its suppliers.

The seizure will hardly be of use to the Maduro regime as Venezuela's car industry has been in freefall, hit by a lack of raw materials due to lack of foreign currency to fund imports and stagnant local production, with many plants are barely producing at all. Last month, according to official statistics, only several hundred cars were sold.

GM is not the first US carmaker to suffer the irrational wrath of Venezuela's dictator: in early 2015, Ford wrote off its investment in Venezuela when it took an $800 million pre-tax writedown. Others have been hit too, and as a result a growing number of US companies are taking their Venezuelan operations out off their consolidated accounts. ExxonMobil pulled the plug on its operations in Venezuelan in 2007 after former President Hugo Chavez attempted to nationalized one of its projects. The oil producer then took the government to court. Coca-Cola was forced to halt production of Coke and other sugar-sweetened beverages last year due to a sugar shortage.

Finally, for those seeking legal remedies, we have one word of advice - patience: Venezuela still faces around 20 arbitration cases over nationalizations under late leader Hugo Chavez.

Some countries attract investers, a long and boring process. Why bother, when you can take the investment and make it your own! Next comes ads on Craigslist for mercenaries. High pay, travel, work for one of the biggest companies in the US. NDA required, Cadillac bonus program.

Could Chinese chemists do it? The answer is yes. So, to compare Venezuala to China is crazy. The two countries are populated by different kinds of people. The human capital of a country cannot be ignored, and this notion that it is all Socialism's fault is not good logic.

Argentina was wealthy during the European immigration period. After Amerindians moved in to find jobs, then things went downhill. South Africa, after Negros immigrated to get jobs, has devolved down to what it is today.

Consider, Venezuala is constantly under attack by Zion bankster crowd. Any country that has oil is a target. See Perkins book, Confessions of an Economic Hitman to understand mechansim.

Argentina is constantly under attack because of Patagonia. Our Zionist Friends are keeping this region on their bucket list in case they need to jump from Israel and other points in the world. It is considered the "practical country" that can house diaspora Jews. And of course, Argentina is less European white than it used to be, and hence less able to resist, or even understand the assaults.

Oh, sure, it's always the Zionist bankers. Chavez and Maduro, we apologize to you. Now we know. You did nothing wrong. The bozo above has the answer. And here we thought it was Socialism that failed. Imagine.

Here is Adrain Salbuchi describing how Patagonia is being targeted by world zionism. When he talks about a century of planning, he is referring to Herzyl and world zion. They had narrowed down their choices to Palestein, Patagonia, and a country in Africa whose name escapes me at the moment... I think Uganda.

And yes, it is very often the Zionist bankers. If people here at ZH don't understand this by now, they ought to go bury their head in the sand. Go back to sleep. Take the blue pill.

Patagonia is the name of the southernmost region of Argentina comprising the provinces of Río Negro, Neuquén, Chubut, Santa Cruz and Tierra del Fuego, together with their Chilean counterpart regions on the Pacific Ocean side of the Andes Mountains. This article highlights the growing signs that this South American Region has been targeted by the Global Power Elite and will be lost by both Argentina and Chile. The Elite plan, in fact, can be traced back to over a century ago. No surprise when you consider that Patagonia has incalculable wealth – oil, gas, minerals, food, water, fish, grains, cattle…

Why would it be in Chavez's interest to sieze the plant? He can steal whatever cars are already built, but he won't be able to continue building cars. It is just a big warehouse filled with stuff he can't use. It is not like a farm or oil well that you could possibly keep running fairly easily - and they screwed those up as well.

Argenta, Can you read? the article says the plant has operated for 70 years... 70 years, long before Chavez was even born. I love how idiots have opinions on the articles without even reading or understanding them.

Seeing a lot of that, particularly with this article. Nobody catches the 70 years of operations or why it would be advantageous to make cars for that area of the world there, as they are not the same as cars here.